Turkey funds award-winning film... then bans it

The Turkish ministry of culture has banned a film it partly funded, and which had been Turkey's hope to pick up an Oscar for best foreign film.

Buyuk Adam, Kucuk Ask (Big Man, Small Love) has won a number of awards. But it has now been banned on the grounds that it highlights Kurdish nationalism and portrays the Turkish police in a poor light.

At the film's heart is the relationship between a nationalist, authoritarian judge and a five-year-old Kurdish orphan. The judge, who is the girl's neighbour, takes her in following a botched raid on her home by police who kill her guardian while looking for two Kurdish rebels hiding in the house.

Through their relationship the film explores the difficulties Turkey has living with its Kurdish minority of 12 million.

For 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s Turkey fought a bloody civil war in the south-east of the country with the Kurds. A ceasefire is in operation, but the Turkish state refuses to allow Kurds to broadcast in their own language or to educate their children in Kurdish.

The Turkish culture ministry partly funded the film with a grant of £20,000, and Turkey had put it forward as its candidate for the best foreign film in the Academy awards - although it was not selected.

The ministry said police had asked for the revocation of the film's licence because the film promoted a "chauvinistic" approach towards Kurdish iden tity and created the impression that police carried out extra-judicial killings.

Attila Dorsay, head of the Turkish film critics association, said: "The whole world will know that Turkey, which is trying to be a democratic country, has come down on this little film."